Books: Miscellany Hodgepodge

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This ultimate scrapbook suggests an inevitable question: Why would anyone want to know the Lord's Prayer in Maltese, the age at which John Stuart Mill began learning Greek (three) or any of the other variegated trivia Bryan has gathered? Answer: to enrich the mind, astound friends and amuse dinner-table partners. The latter objective receives its own 19-entry chapter, in which Novelist Virginia Faulkner's advice is cited: "I ask the gentleman on my right, 'Are you a bed-wetter?', and when we have exhausted that, I remark to the gentleman on my left, 'You know, I spit blood this morning.' " Hodgepodge has an erudite word for just about every purpose and contingency, including, in a section on critics, Ambrose Bierce's review of another volume: "The covers of this book are too far apart." The covers of this one are too close together.

FOOTNOTE: *Answers: 1. Montague; 2. Orville; 3. latchstring;

4. ten.